A day in the life of Defender electrics

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Lief Zpring

Lief Zpring

Well-Known Member
Posts
802
Location
Northumberland
The indicators developed a little quirk last week, the green trailer light on the instrument panel illuminated permanently but the indicators still functioned. So I put it down to moisture in the wrong place and forgot about it. :cool:

Left home at six this morning after scraping ice from the windscreen (both outside and inside). The Landy started fine and the lights all worked but I noticed the trailer light had gone out and the indicators were dead. The fuse was fine, I wiggled the back of the column switches, the relay but still no indicators. Surprisingly, on a 25 mile journey from rural Northumberland into Newcastle City Centre I only really need to indicate once. So I chanced it.

When I arrived at work I switched the ignition off and removed the key. Normally at this point the engine falls silent. Not today. The engine carried on idling quite happily.:eek: I stared at the keys and listened to the 300tdi purring away (well not really purring, more clattering). While I tried to remember the best way to kill a tdi, I noticed that the headlights were still on. I turned them off and the light switch also killed the engine. How are these things wired up?:eek:

Anyway, before leaving at 3.00 pm, after a productive day at the office :rolleyes::rolleyes: I test the indicators. Dead :(. About five miles into the journey they suddenly spring back to life and become fully operational without even the trailer light. :D

Back home the engine stops on the turn of the key. No drama.o_O

Does anyone else's Defender develop electrical faults and then fixes them in the same journey? I think the column switch may be the cause of the indicator fault but I have no idea how the light switch can stop the engine.
 
Now for the electrickity problems.:mad: When it comes to old landy's the most common cause is bad earth's. When they fail/become poor the electric magic finds other ways to go.
 
When I put my indicators on the trailer light does one flash only then everything works as it should:rolleyes:
 
tottot said:
Now for the electrickity problems.:mad: When it comes to old landy's the most common cause is bad earth's. When they fail/become poor the electric magic finds other ways to go.
Click to expand...

Suspected as much. I'll get the multimeter on it this weekend. The dip/dim column switch is only 12 month old but it's a Sh*tpart so probably past it's best before date.:mad:
 
not sure how old your landi is (min es a 300tdi 94 reg) but my indecators started playing about and turned out to be the hazzard switch, not quite sure how it all ties in but anyway replaced it with a new one and all good after.. on a side note if you do replace it.. make sure its a lucas one ,, i replaced it first with a non lucas (blue package) and it lasted less than a month..
 
I had something similar a while ago but involving the heated rear screen switch. I was out one day and a very heavy shower came on, the sort where you can see the rain bouncing off the bonnet and the road looks like a river. This only lasted half an hour or so, but for a while afterwards the heated screen warning light came on whenever I switched the lights on. Of course when you get this sort of thing everybody says 'earth'. It was just the warning light, not the heated screen itself. If you actually put the heated screen on, the lights and ignition stayed on, even if you switched them off in the normal way. In investigating the earth possibility, I multimetered the resistance between all the black wires I could find and the battery negative terminal and it was zero everywhere. Even so I took the earth terminals off and cleaned them and put them back together.
I was zeroing in on the warning light wire that goes from the heated screen switch to the light on the instrument cluster. Maybe that was shorting against something else? I got as far as buying some black and white striped wire to replace it (I try to use the original coloured wire, so the wiring diagrams still make sense) but it cured itself spontaneously. I think water had got in through the air vents and got in the wiring loom and hung around for a few weeks.
 
I had some weird ones with lights not working, and then when those ones came on, other ones went off. Couldn't get all the idicators, lights, brakes, etc working all the time.

Did a deep clean of the fuses. All out. Clean, spray and cleaned the connectors (glass type).

Has banished the gremlins for now.
 
I think I might wait until the drier weather and do a similar deep clean. I'll also do all exterior and under bonnet connectors, giving them a coat of grease to keep the water out.
 
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